Thanks for the response. Part of what confuses me is that Don said the guy in the short corner should be behind the basket with his heels on the baseline, which means there wouldn't be a shot. Maybe I misunderstood.

I guess that was Don's philosophy... we wanted our guy to have a look at the basket IF he was a shooter.... I understand where he is coming from... IF he is behind the basket.. the defenders have to turn their heads to find him... often... and we did that also... we just wanted him to receive the ball a little further out so he had a look at the basket... be a scoring threat.

The good thing about cutters is that you can always use it as a secondary offense, delay offense, situational offense, etc. It's pretty versatile and easy to use against M2M.

To reinforce what Coach Sars mentioned about short corner, we would enter the ball into short corner, then all the defensive players would turn their heads because the short corner is behind all them, then the player at the high post/free throw line would cut to the rim, receive the pass and dunk (or lay up for 6th graders). It was very effective. Now you can't just rely on that, but incorporating the short corner into your zone offense is generally a good idea.

Jeff, thanks for the reply. What kind of rule do you put in to get a guy in the short corner?

Greg - It depends on my players, the types of zones I see, and how I often I see them.

If I don't see zone very often and my players can handle much, I just say the middle guy dives to the basket every time the ball is caught in short corner.

I generally don't set or change any rules. Instead I drill the type of cut I want a few times and then show them how it works on controlled practice (I might stop play and say, hey next time the ball goes here, this guy should look for the cut). Then it will naturally happen on occasion and they're not predictable robots. And the only real rule is something more like... "don't stand for more than 2 seconds -- or if you pass cut -- etc"

There are so many ways to attack a zone. You need to find what works for you. Most of my success came with a patterned zone offense that attacked the gaps and attacked the back side of the zone and reversed the ball. I'm not coaching at the moment and not sure if I'd use that today. I'd probably stick with motion but I suppose it depends on my team.

If you run a motion offense here are more ideas for rules for you to consider:

- If you see zone, put players in the gaps, so your primary spacing is to put people in gaps. So for example, instead of always running a 5-out or 3 out 2 in, put players in the gaps of what ever zone they are running. Against a 2-3 zone, you could have 1-2-2 formation (basically a 3 out 2 in). Against a 1-2-2 zone, you could have a 2-1-2 formation. Or to simplify you could just always use odd man front against 2-3 zone and even man front against 1-2-2 or 1-3-1. There are lots of different zone offense formation but they almost always put players in the gaps. And they often put players in the middle and short corner. Choose what you feel comfortable with.

- If you don't see a huge gap, reverse the ball.

- If you're covered, dribble at a perimeter player and shallow cut for the reversal.

- The the middle is not occupied by a team mate, flash middle.

- If the short corner is not occupied by a team mate, flash short corner.

- If your teammate cuts, follow him/her to fill the gap and look for the ball.

- If you're in the corner or post area, move behind the zone and cut to the open spot from the back of the zone.

- Put your best ballhander and play maker in the middle of the zone. This person does not have to be tall. If your best playmaker is your shortest player, put him in the middle. When ever this person catches the ball, tell them to create. This player will cause havoc on the bigger slower player in the middle trying to guard. Make plays - shoot, dribble, drive, pass, find the team mate. A great player is tough to stop in that spot.

First, I have to thank you guys so much for indulging me. I really appreciate the responses and if I had it to do over again, I'd probably have done things differently. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to make the fewest modifications and still make this work against a zone. About 5 of the 8 guys could remember rule 1 (pass and basket cut), so I'm a little leery of introducing another set.



I know this isn't optimum, but here's what I'm thinking. I show the kids the holes in the zone between 1, 4, and 5 (picture included because I don't know what to call these positions in the zone) and the 2, 3, and 5. I tell them the object is to get the ball in those gaps. If you get the ball there either with a dribble or a pass then take a jump shot or pass (quickly!). Look to pass to the weak side which should be wide open. The weak side wing or short corner can step into the gap. If you get the ball on the wing and can't make the pass look to reverse. The opposite wing or short corner should be ready to fill to the hole on the other side. To keep things moving, the pass and cut rule would basically be the same, but tell them to cut and fill a gap in the zone where they can get a pass and then exit to the open short corner.

Do you think this is worth pursuing or do you think I should just say, "OK. We've practiced our man to man offense. Now let's work on a new zone offense." If everyone plays zone as I suspect then that would probably be our offense the rest of the year.

I heard a college coach say this about attacking zones... "it's not rocket science... put em where they aint!"

Keep things simple, put your kids in the gaps (if you want to use what you are doing now, tell them to cut and fill that gap) make sure they are in passing lanes. Since I am not familiar enough with that offense I cant tell you if that was going to work... but we had a separate zone offense from our m2m stuff.

JMO
Ken

Greg - Both methods will work. It's just what you feel comfortable and prefer. It's not "what" you run but "how" you run it. There are so many different systems and offenses out there. Frankly, they pretty much all work and can win championships if run properly.

So go with something you think you can teach successfully and what you think will be best for your players development (allows you to spend time on fundamentals, etc).

Jeff

Thanks for all the help. I did the experimental approach on Monday scrimmaging ourselves -- had to teach them what a 2-3 zone was, so we could play against it.

I used an analogy that I thought worked pretty well. We played a down of half court football with a zone coverage and asked one of the kids to go out for a pass. He instinctively slanted to the middle to the soft spot in the zone and I threw him a pass. I said when somebody catches the basketball he's the qb and the ball has been snapped. Your job is to find those soft spots. They seemed to get it.

We scrimmaged and watching them I settled on a 3 out 2 in, which I actually used last year. It wasn't too confusing I think and it's better suited to my players. The post players moved between gaps in the zone (I pointed out the most likely spots) and perimeter players do the same cut and replace on the perimeter as before. I emphasized reversing the ball and looking to the weak side and tried to let them figure it out in the scrimmage.

http://www.basketballalberta.ca/clientuploads/ZoneAttack_MacKay_Mike.pdf

I just wanted to share the above link. Going through this last practice made a huge difference in my kids' understanding of how to play versus a zone and helped us to a big win today, getting very good shots against a zone defense. The philosophy of teaching concepts and letting them play also fits in well with the motion offense approach.